Yanukovych spoke for nearly forty minutes on Ukraine’s trade relationship with Germany, his efforts to fight corruption, and his new Finnish boathouse. He paused once to mention E.U. membership. The next day he was on a flight to Beijing, where he signed investment deals worth over $4 billion.

There may have been a lot of chatter over Merkel’s cool reception of Yanukovych. Not many noticed that Yanukovych’s embrace of Europe was equally reserved. While he confirmed that Ukrainians seek E.U. membership, he also made it clear that E.U. membership was not his top concern. Ukraine will be looking Far East, not near West.

The Beijing trip sent a clear message to Berlin. Ukraine will remain open for business with Germany and Europe. But that relationship will not be exclusive. Moscow and Beijing will have an equal share. Most importantly, economic ties do not mean privileges for Europe when it comes to influencing Kyiv’s domestic affairs.

After his speech, the president was asked directly about his country’s future in the E.U. While he acknowledged an increasingly large number of Ukrianians support E.U. membership, Yanukovych also delcared his approach Euro-Pragmatist, not Euro-Romantic. “First we must build Europe in Ukraine,” he replied.

In the past, that approach suited Germany just fine. Germany hoped that a climate of economic security, combined with trade interests, could passively encourage democracy. Business has become the bottom line in Germany’s approach to East Europe.

“The East is Germany’s Middle East – that’s where they get their energy from,” said Asle Toje, author of The European Union as a Small Power. “These are experienced statesmen who are very cautious about pursuing any policy that could tilt the equilibrium in a way that would not favor German interests.”

Those interests include Germany’s economic ties with Russia, a relationship Toje says Germany is not willing to jeopardize for democratic crusading. The E.U. wed itself to the Orange Revolution in 2004. After a disappointing term led to defeat at the polls, Germany in particularly regrets backing the wrong horse.

Democratic crusading is one thing, but a modern, prosperous Ukraine where journalists continue to disappear should not be an option. Modernization and investment has long been seen as a back door to democracy. It’s the founding principle of the Eastern Partnership. This principle needs to be re-examined.

“Building Europe in Ukraine” isn’t simply a matter of replicating the Eiffel tower in Lviv, or making a leaning tower of Kyiv. You can’t have Europe without Europeans: A well-informed, well-educated citizenry with a clear investment in their society’s success. Money alone does not lead the individual to happiness, and neither is it the solution to the development of a successful society. Yanukovych has had trouble realizing that good governance can also be good for business.

In fact, Yanukovych’s domestic policies cost him political capital in Europe. One of the reasons the Berlin trip was unsuccessful was because Yanukovych can not understand why his policies toward civil society evoke such large concerns from Europe, argues Lukasz Adamski, an analyst at the Polish Institute for International Affairs.

“The German government is not naïve. They do not expect the Party of Regions to be a party of democrats. They are concerned with exerting pressure on Yanukovych so that the situation in Ukraine does not deteriorate.”

It’s no secret that Yanukovych prefers his trade made in China – with no strings attached. As Ukraine’s political ties head East with its president, Berlin’s tactic of encouraging democracy through development may become dated. European business ties may no longer be sufficient tools to reign in illiberal behavior. If Yanukovych manages to substitute Beijing for Berlin, Ukraine may find itself a Europe without Europeans.

China wants what the US has – hegemony in its own region. Unfortunately for the Chinese, Asian states and external powers with Asian interests will prove far less compliant or susceptible to Chinese domination than the Latin American states were to American rule. The US, for its own part, will attempt to frustrate and undermine this rise, and in the process further Chinese suspicions about America’s intentions. As Mearsheimer says, America should be acting like a status quo power, but given its proclivity for interventions in support of its geopolitical interests, humanitarian and liberal-democratic values, it is easy to see why Beijing would mistake it for a revisionist power. The view of China in the United States has similarly shifted from one of a power relatively satisfied with high economic growth within a region dominated by the American military to less optimistic recognition of China’s wish to assert its newfound power in the international system.

When Mearsheimer outlined this argument at the close of his book in 2001, China was far weaker, the US was predominant and the events of September 11th shoved great power politics into the background of US foreign policy. Both the governing administration and its main political opponents had comparatively little interest in the idea of a confrontation with China, regardless of whether an academic’s theory deemed such an event nearly inevitable or not. Today, his arguments are more relevant than we might like. The failure to establish a working relationship between the PLA and the US military, Hillary Clinton’s declaration against China’s maximalist approach to territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and the publication of a long-delayed Pentagon report on the Chinese military all point to very tense times for the Asia-Pacific ahead.

Of course, there are plenty of political incentives for the US to treat this as a shocking new development or an aberration from the norm. For the Obama administration, portraying China’s intentions as revisionist and aggressive will help paper over the failure of the administration’s National Security Strategy to integrate China as a cooperative partner on security issues. The administration will not have to acknowledge that there are major structural reasons for great powers not to coöperate on issues involving what they consider their “core national interest” and that not all countries think preserving an American-led rules based order is worth forgoing the opportunity to take advantage of US overstretch or decline, instead, they can blame it on China’s inability to recognize “shared interests” and embrace the new global century. For administration opponents, it is an opportunity to paint the administration as weak on defense and foreign policy, while the budget warriors fighting for the US Air Force and Navy will have a better case for pushing back against Gates’s proposed cuts.

The reason to keep Mearsheimer’s lecture in mind is not to demonize China, however – quite the opposite. Mearsheimer reminds us that material circumstances and international structure will compel the Chinese to behave as a reasonable great power would – to dominate their own region and prevent a foreign hegemon from interfering in their own. The defensive-offensive conundrum that Mearsheimer notes on Chinese military growth applies equally to the US military, which can inflict far more pain on China’s core national interests than China can on America’s. So too should we keep in mind that efforts to contain or balance against China will contribute to Chinese fears and the desire for military buildup. Indeed, a National Security Strategy that succeeds in fostering strong military partnerships under American leadership that cannot accommodate China’s growing interests is going to look a lot like an American attempt to prevent China’s rise. So, given that Southeast Asian arms purchases have doubled, and the US has courted alliances all along China’s major Sea Lines of Communication, we should not be surprised China’s strategic moves are becoming less about economic influence and more about the political power to prevent rival states from neutralizing that commercial wealth. China has embraced Mahan as America did – as it rises economically among powerful rivals with maritime supremacy. Mearsheimer emphasizes that China would be strategically wise to pursue this path:

Are they more principled than Americans are? More ethical? Are they less nationalistic than Americans? Less concerned about their survival? They are none of these things, of course, which is why China is likely to imitate the United States and attempt to become a regional hegemon.

Of course, we may not live in a world where Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism rules. Waltzian Defensive Realists are not as worried, nor are those adhering to Stephen Walt’s balance of threat theory. Neorealism in general, with its strong emphasis on international structure, faces plenty of criticism from other realists and the broader IR community. But for policymakers, Mearsheimer’s perspective should provide some sobering lessons. Whatever the status of particular flash-points, the successes or pitfalls of diplomatic summits, or the rhetorical content of each state’s public diplomacy, the US must bear in mind the inherent dangers of the present international structure. The National Security Strategy is just a variation on an old theme – the US acting as a revisionist power to fashion a better world order under American leadership. The rise of China should realign our concerns with our interests as a status quo power – and keep us mindful that we are moving towards a balance of power where tragedy is possible.

1. The “stewardship” of the United Nations for actually preventing any conflict, anywhere in the world at any time in its 65 year history has been less than stellar; the UN usually does a decent job as a sort of multinational clean-up crew for after the wars have run their course (ceasefires, tents, aid packages, border monitors etc..). Now, it would be spectacular if preventative strikes against Iran were launched by a real multinational coalition (like this), but everyone knows that’s about as likely as, say, a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2. Well, if the revolutionary guards are in control of Iran now anyway, what’s the difference?
3. So basically, Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah become untouchable, because Iran will resort to nuclear weapons every time Israeli planes strike rocket launchers in the Gaza strip or southern Lebanon. Because, you know, every time an American plane pounded the Vietcong, the Soviets and the Chinese hit us back with a nuclear weapon.
4. Certainly a nuclear-armed Iran might be inclined to act more aggressively toward America’s Arab allies in and around the Persian Gulf. In that case, the United States should increase its own military presence in the gulf (like we’re already doing) and help the gulf states bolster their own defenses (like we’re already doing) to shore up the entire region.
5. There will never be a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, but that’s what makes the rejectionists on both sides rejectionists. The whole process is rife with rejectionism already. That’s like saying if you shoot off a dead camel’s leg, then the poor thing won’t be able to walk.
6. Iran and North Korea having nuclear weapons is certainly a setback for proliferation, but not a fatal one; there are still fortysome countries that could go nuclear with relative ease, but choose not to because they simply see no benefit (security or otherwise) to doing so.

Military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny.  The gusher has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time.

Gates mentions the most egregious and wasteful programs he hopes to kill, such as the prohibitively expensive and hardly useful F-35 alternate engine, or the C-17 transports the USAF does not even want, and reiterates his desire to seek a Presidential veto on any budget including these items. Gates did not shirk from controversy, however. He then declared:

Health-care costs are eating the Defense Department alive, rising from $19 billion a decade ago to roughly $50 billion – roughly the entire foreign affairs and assistance budget of the State Department.

Even single-payer systems are not immune to America’s health-care woes, it seems. Even with Gates’s sympathy and understanding for opposition to cost-saving measures involving the military’s health care system, it is still surprising to hear something that Gates admits arouses fury from Congress and veterans’ groups in a major speech. Gates also mentions the skyrocketing costs of weapons systems such as the DDG-1000 and B-2, though some have argued their “upward spiral” in costs actually stems from insufficiently large production runs.

One of Gates’s major targets however, is the bureaucratic structure of the DoD. He notes:

Consider the Department’s spending on operations and maintenance, a broad category that encompasses about $200 billion worth of the day-to-day activities of the military – from flight training to mowing the grass.   Over the last decade, spending in this area – not counting expenses directly related to the wars – has about doubled, with large increases in administrative and infrastructure support…

Another category ripe for scrutiny should be overhead – all the activity and bureaucracy that supports the military mission.  According to an estimate by the Defense Business Board, overhead, broadly defined, makes up roughly 40 percent of the Department’s budget.

During the 1990s, the military saw deep cuts in overall force structure – the Army by nearly 40 percent.  But the reduction in flag officers – generals and admirals – was about half that.  The Department’s management layers – civilian and military – and numbers of senior executives outside the services grew during that same period.

The increasingly bureaucratic nature of much of our defense spending is a serious problem indeed. With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, laments about the insufficient size of available US ground forces were common from both opponents and proponents of the war. Yes, perhaps this was the logical outcome of a post-Cold War military – but Gates is absolutely correct about the senselessness of staffing and financing a huge amount of unnecessary staff at at time when the US military has to implement stop-loss programs to fight active wars.

Maintaining America’s military in a time of massive debt and economic stagnation is about more than cutting over-budget weapons systems. Like the hydra, the heads will grow back, because as long as the need or desire for modernizing the military remains and the refusal on the part of bureaucrats and legislators to cut down on costs endures, another program will come along later. Real, lasting change requires reversing the bureaucratization and sacrifice of tooth for tail, recognizing that America’s defense procurement is about more than how much it stimulates industry and whose state it stimulates industry in, and being willing to make the changes that follow from this recognition. Gates will be on his way out soon. If he can accomplish any of these goals, however, he may well be the most important Secretary of Defense in history.

Restoring confidence in Greece, and thereby the Euro, is certainly an issue for the whole EU. Yet, the necessity of talking about Greece in terms of the whole Union has, in turn, led to talking about the EU in terms of Germany. The unwillingness to contribute substantial funding to Greece without sufficient assurances – even including the potential sale of Greek islands – has once more put Germany in an unfavorable light. As the wealthiest EU member state and home to the European Central Bank, Germany has been criticized as inept, selfish and stingy. A delayed response has been attributed to the German desire for an impossible solution: saving Greece without spending money, while simultaneously punishing Greece without appearing to be a bully. This has led to a stalemate in relief negotiations, and the Germans seem to have just been wasting people’s time with their seemingly impossible demands.

But no longer – German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet has agreed to contribute approximately $30 billion in loans to Greece as part of a larger agreement that was reached on Sunday. The plan, which was drafted by the International Monetary Firm (IMF), the European Commission and the European Central Bank (and Greece has agreed to), features €120 ($160) billion in financial aid from Euro-zone countries by 2012.  Over three years the IMF will contribute €27 ($36) billion, of which €15 ($19) billion will be available in the first year. Although the injection of funds should prevent the Greek crisis from becoming any worse, it is only one step in the process of recovery.

Over the coming months and years Greece will have to pass legislation to reform its economy. Among structural reform, the Greek government has already agreed to cut its budget by € 30 ($40) billion, which equates to about 13% of GDP.  Many of these cuts will come from lowering the salaries of government employees and reductions in social programs. In the face of distrust of not only the government, but also the IMF, the likelihood of further bouts of demonstrations and protests by a population with already-stretched pockets seems high.

In the meantime, the EU must determine what measures are necessary to prevent a future crisis of the same magnitude from breaking out in other member states. Stricter regulation and more conservative budgets are likely to come into favor – among just some of the policies for which Germany has a well-earned stereotype.

However, as some skeptics predicted, the DPJ’s lack of experience governing would evince itself conspicuously in the conduct of its foreign affairs. An excellent post by “Curzon” at ComingAnarchy explains this (then contrarian) take on the DPJ’s foreign policy, with emphasis on the controversy over US base relocation in Okinawa – an issue that the LDP is now hammering the DPJ with. Simultaneously, the DPJ’s constituents do not want to see the DPJ renege on its promise to get the base out. Hatoyama has roughly a month to resolve the basing issue – if he does not, or if he cannot do so in a way satisfactory to the electorate and the United States, he may be in trouble at the polls. Already he is facing trouble between pursuing his government’s center-left economic agenda and placating business interests that may prove critical in upcoming elections. With the basing deadline, however, Hatoyama has made Okinawa the critical issue of his political career.

Two issues make the basing of US forces in Japan a vital political question. The first is Japan’s “pacifist” status. Though Japan’s economic woes and the defeat of the LDP provided a momentary interruption to this trend, the string of LDP Prime Ministers in the 2000s, particularly Koizumi, Abe, and Aso, demonstrated consistent interest in normalizing Japan’s foreign and defense policy. One might interpret the more independent streak in Hatoyama and the DPJ’s rhetoric as another facet of this drive to make Japan a “normal” nation. Today, however, Japan is not a normal nation, especially relative to the defense capabilities it could maintain and the region it occupies*. The Chinese naval exercises near Okinawa could probably not have come at a worse time for Hatoyama.

For all the DPJ’s forward-looking views on regional cooperation and its reasonable corrective to the perceived errors of LDP foreign policy, the truth remains that America is key to Japanese defense and its most critical partner on regional security issues in a part of the world where the potential for war lingers – and balancing diplomatic and domestic politics will not prove easy. If, on top of its economic troubles, the DPJ cannot find a solution pleasing to both its political base and the supporters of Futenma, then this exception to Japan’s one-party democracy may prove short-lived.

*  Consider that Japan spends something like 0.8% of GDP on defense. Were Japan to raise defense spending to a “normal” level, say 2%, it might well match China’s defense spending or surpass it. Of course, given Japan’s economic problems, the enormous unresolved historical grievances virtually all East Asian countries harbor towards it, and the potentially destabilizing effect of such defense increases, this would not make prudent policy. But it is worth remembering that Japan has relatively low material or technical obstacles to overcome should it desire a real aircraft carrier or nuclear weapons.

                The Liberal Democrats are far and away the most Eurocentric, and (after more than half the chapter devoted to climate change and developing world aid) talk about placing Britain “at the heart of Europe”  to the point of eventually adopting the Euro. This would replace the “subservient and dangerous” relationship with the United States that drags Britain into things like the “illegal” invasion of Iraq. Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent of Trident submarines should also be abandoned. The contrast with the Conservatives could not be greater, who spend a large portion of their IR section on support for and reform in the military, then enumerate foreign policy points indicative of a vision for the UK as and independent global power. Here is found a list describing factors behind that power, like being “a global trading nation,” having “a leading role in NATO,” being “home to the world’s pre-eminent language” and commanding “armed forces that are the envy of the world.” Britain under a Tory government would pursue a “new special relationship with India,” engage China while “standing firm for human rights,” and push to widen UN Security Council membership, among other “hard-headed and practical” ideas”. It seems these people would love to run America, if “a strong, close and frank relationship with the United States” were not mentioned. The most animated part of the Tory chapter concerns the idea of a European Union that should be “an association of its member states” rather than “a federal Europe” of which Britain should not be a part. The Labor government’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum was “a betrayal democratic traditions” and no more powers—let alone the British pound—should be transferred to Brussels. On the contrary, “the steady and unaccountable intrusion of the EU into every aspect of our lives has gone to far” and certain EU powers on criminal justice and social legislation should return to London.

                Compared to its challengers, Labour’s approach is more nuanced and less decisive either way. The ruling party derides the Tories’ Euroskepticism as “sullen resistance and disengagement that achieve nothing” and talks about positioning the UK to “lead” a Europe that “engages bilaterally” with the world’s other major powers and enhances its economic competitiveness with continued enlargement and certain internal reforms (infrastructure, financial regulation agriculture). No mention of America or the “special relationship” is made outside a passage criticizing the “poverty of the Tory vision” which presents a “false choice between an alliance with the United States and one with Europe.” Such an outlook would make a Prime Minister Cameron “isolated in the EU” to an extent that damagingly “undermines British influence.” Certainly no mention of Iraq exists at all—in contrast to a lengthy discourse on the importance of the Afghan mission and how the current government plans on ensuring success there, along with military funding pledges that include maintenance of the nuclear deterrent. The remaining space is devoted to passages hailing Labour’s commitments to foreign development, and reforming global institutions like the UN and the World Bank.

In Kentucky, another interesting race pits the Tea Party faithful against an established Republican. Political novice Rand Paul, son of fiscal conservative messiah Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), is up against the more moderate Secretary of State Trey Grayson (endorsed by, strangely enough, Former Vice President Dick Cheney). A deep distrust of elected officials – in Washington and otherwise, has seriously damaged Grayson’s prospects for victory, and he now trails his celebrity opponent by an average of 10-points in the most recent polls.

The most interesting social phenomenon in American politics since the inauguration of President Obama nearly a year and a half ago has been the fomentation of the grassroots, conservative Tea Party movement. If Rubio (as well as Paul) is to prevail in this primary (as all signs – barring scandal – currently seem to indicate that he will), it will be the most significant political victory of the movement to date (barring an exceedingly unlikely repeal of the Democrat’s healthcare bill, which has little traction in either house of congress).

Regardless, the same persisting questions to the endurance of this movement remain. Its power will continue to diminish as laid-off Americans (the Tea Party’s most resilient and boisterous supporters) slowly (but surely) begin to re-enter the workforce and the economy shakes off the tremors of recession. A lack of ideological centralization and completeness in the movement may also continue to ebb at its prospects for success (as demonstrated by this year’s Tea Party Convention and the glaring omission of Foreign Policy issues from their campaign rhetoric).

The friction between conservative Tea Partiers and more moderate establishment Republicans will define the party’s election prospects in November. The momentum in opinion polls remains with the right (although President Obama seems to have seriously hit a policy-making stride post-Healthcare on both domestic and international issues), but could run itself into a ditch if these primary fights become too taxing, and although Rubio’s commanding lead likely won’t diminish too much in the coming months, Crist’s campaign will likely have to take a decidedly negative bent if he wants to salvage his prospects in this race (and consequently, his political career).

The majority of the questions asked here will not be answered for some time. We cannot tell whether this movement will have staying power, but its influence will have a dramatic political impact on the midterm elections.

Florida Senate Candidates Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio enjoy a more cordial moment. Source: World News.